Skipper Kane Williamson struck a half-century as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Gujarat Titans by eight wickets in their Indian Premier League 2022 match at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday.
After winning the toss and restricting GT to 162/7, Hyderabad rode on a 46-ball 57 by Williamson to register their second victory of the season and hand Gujarat their first defeat.
Hyderabad got off to a cautious start in their chase, reaching 11/0 in four overs. But Williamson hit Mohammed Shami for a four and a six in the next over before Abhishek Sharma ended the powerplay by hitting Lockie Ferguson for four fours in an over.
Sharma was dismissed by Rashid Khan (1/28) for 42 off 32 before Rahul Tripathi was retired hurt for 17 off 11 after suffering cramps in his leg.
Williamson took 42 deliveries to get to his half-century and was dismissed soon after. Hyderabad needed 34 off 23 at that point but they didn’t panic as Nicholas Pooran (34 off 18) and Aiden Markram (12 off 8) stitched an unbeaten partnership to take their team to 168/2 in 19.1 overs. Pooran was particularly impressive and hit two fours and as many sixes in his innings;.
Earlier, Gujarat got off to a rapid start thanks to two five wides by Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first over of the match. But the experienced India pacer bounced back to dismiss Shubman Gill in his second over.
Matthew Wade (19) and Sai Sudharsan (11) couldn’t kick-on but skipper Hardik Pandya found form and hit some confident strokes early in his innings. He was struck on the helmet by an Umran Malik bouncer but responded by hitting the next two deliveries for fours.
David Miller (12) didn’t stay for long either and it came down to a quick-fire 35 from Abhinav Manohar, who was dropped thrice in his innings, to help Gujarat get a move on.
Pandya remained unbeaten on 50 off 42 but he didn’t help his team’s cause by not hitting a boundary off the last 16 balls he faced. He hit four fours and a six in his knock and registered his slowest-ever IPL half-century.
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